critical thinking on brand experiences that connect, inspire and transform

Sydney Your Say Rebrand and Website Redesign

BRANDING, LOGO DESIGN, RESPONSIVE WEB DESIGN, UI DESIGN

CLIENT: CITY OF SYDNEY

If you must choose a workshop to go – workshop A is run by a robot. You and other humans have to sit straight and answer questions precisely. Workshop B is run by a bright and bubbly young lady. She cares about you and invites you to share your dreams with her. Workshop B is without doubt the one to go to, unless you are a robot too.

Sydney Your Say is in the transition of A to B (symbolically). The purposes of the rebrand is to:

1. state the aspiration that Sydney Your Say is for the future of Sydney;

A community engagement hub for residents, non-residents, business proprietors, stakeholders and general public to share ideas and feedback in order to help City of Sydney’s decision-making process.

Participation includes consultations at workshops and community meetings, stakeholder meetings, surveys, online and others.

My tasks

1. Redesigned Sydney Your Say logo and created brand devices.

2. Redesigned Sydney Your Say website homepage and re-skined other pages with the new branding.

Design rationale

1. The brand should be communicable to the public; neutral, not overly stylised, to fit in the breadth and depth of the subject matters.

2. Speech bubbles used in the brand mark communicate what Sydney Your Say is about.

3. Primary colours and shapes of the speech bubbles create resemblance to balloons, giving lightheartedness to the brand image.

4. Tagline sums up the mission, prospect and call-to-action.

5. The ‘Have Your Say’ press ads, which could sometimes have very short turnaround time, are templated in minimal design to be used by designers and non-designers at the organisation.

6. On digital platforms and website, colours and curvy shapes are used to give lightheartedness to the brand image, making it joyful for users to participate.

7. The redesign of the website sees an improvement from the old website in terms of usability, brand image and marketability. Due to the restriction of the existing CMS, only the homepage was redesigned and the rest of the website was re-skined. I am hoping to see the whole website being improved over time based on user feedback, as it still shows poor user experience especially for important functions such as sign-in / sign-up and user comment.